1/4 Hour Neuro #12: Training Parameters and Neuroplasticity in RNP

Welcome to the Neuro Quarter Hour

Welcome to the Neuro Quarter Hour from Labo RNP! Each week, we address your questions to improve your quality of life and performance. This week, we tackle a common inquiry: how does neuro-postural correction work, how does it evolve over time, and should we always stick to the same exercises?

Many listeners wonder why, after months of practice, the same exercises no longer yield the same improvements as at the beginning. This is an essential question that touches on the fundamental principles of training and neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity and Training Logic

The human body, particularly its nervous system, operates like athletic training. At first, progress is rapid. But after a while, you hit a plateau. It then becomes necessary to adjust the parameters to continue progressing.

If you're looking to increase your maximum strength but are only doing sets of 5 at 100 kg for six months without progress, you'll never reach 200 kg. This is the principle of progressive overload, and neuroplasticity works in exactly the same way.

Adapting Neuro-Postural Training Parameters

Just like physical training, neuro-postural reprogramming uses training parameters. Many believe it's a "one-shot" deal: you do an exercise and everything gets better. However, your needs today won't be the same in three weeks because you will have progressed and your body will have changed.

Take the bench press, for example: if you identify a weak link, you work on it. A month later, that weak link may be gone, and another will appear. It's a continuous process of adaptation. There’s no magic bullet solution for a major issue. It's about a combination of improvements and variations.

If an exercise becomes too easy, it means your body has adapted. You need to modify it, make it more complex, or move on to something else. During an initial assessment, we identify weaknesses to work on. Six months later, those weaknesses are recalibrated, and others, sometimes unexpected, may appear because the most significant issues have been addressed.

The Sensory Bucket: Understanding Compression

Imagine your body as a bucket filling up with all sensory inputs. If these inputs are of poor quality or too numerous, the bucket level rises. If it overflows, the body compensates by reducing mobility and strength to prevent injuries. The goal of RNP is to lower this level.

The lower the level, the closer you get to optimal performance. Initially, we identify what fills the bucket the most. Then, we strive to continually reduce this level, but we can't do everything at once.

This is similar to primitive reflexes: if a dominant reflex isn't integrated, we work on it. It’s a program based on principles that adapt to each individual and evolve constantly.

The Rules of Neuroplasticity: Intensity and Use

Among the training principles, neuroplasticity is paramount. Two key criteria are intensity and use (Use It or Lose It; Use It and Improve It). Intensity is fundamental.

A vestibular exercise, for example, can be adapted along a progression continuum: sitting, standing, on one foot, walking. It’s the variation in difficulty that increases the intensity and complexity of the exercise.

An exercise should never be consistently easy. If you consistently succeed at an exercise without effort, it means it’s too simple and won’t lead to adaptation. The challenge is necessary for progress.

The brain tells us what it needs, and the programming of exercises depends on that. The right exercise is one that challenges us and that we initially fail at.

Maintenance and Continuous Development

Once problems are identified and a certain level is achieved, it’s crucial to maintain those gains. Just because you’ve “integrated” everything doesn’t mean you should stop. It’s about incorporating neuro work into your warm-up routine, for instance, to sustain the benefits.

Secondly, there’s a development phase. Remember, before being an athlete, you are a human being. Many people don’t even have the fundamental qualities. By improving the “human”, we enhance the “athlete”.

Primitive reflexes, for instance, are universal and should not be “specific” to elite levels. They form the foundation upon which performance is built.

The Deliberate Practice Model

The key to progression, for both children and elite athletes, is deliberate practice. We don’t train to repeat mindlessly, but for a process of progress, constantly returning to the beginner stage of instructions and moving forward again.

This is the only way to truly progress; simply repeating mechanically won’t work. If you always do the same thing, nothing magical will happen.